


Unmaking

by DredgenTrust



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Abandonment, Abuse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Darkfic, Dissociation, Extremely Dubious Consent, Imprisonment, Kidnapping, M/M, Multiple Endings, Rough Oral Sex, Sharing a Body, Starvation, Stockholm Syndrome, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:48:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23511079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DredgenTrust/pseuds/DredgenTrust
Summary: "You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together to make a creature that will do what I say or love me back."-Richard SikenThe confrontation on that ridge does not go quite as well as in canon.1- Vale kills Yor2- Teben3- Yor dies offscreen4- Jaren
Relationships: Jaren Ward/Dredgen Yor, Shin Malphur/Dredgen Yor, Teben Grey/Shin Malphur
Comments: 9
Kudos: 33





	1. Resentment

The sheer heat and fury of the flame pouring off this boy is impressive. It speaks to a power that hadn't been there in Jared, a force of will that would have served him well. His light is _strong;_ Yor can appreciate that.

But heat is the waste energy of the universe, and the way grass curls and scorches beneath his feet is not so intimidating as perhaps he'd like. After all, all that heat of this magnitude implies is a lack of efficiency. Yor himself has raw power enough to match whatever this child can throw out, with the skill to make it count. Perhaps, in a few decades, the boy would have been able to kill him. If his ability as a tracker had not outmatched his touch with the light, perhaps Yor would have allowed him the shot he needed.

This, though? In an odd way, allowing this one to kill him would be to disrespect his mentor's memory. He is _not_ greater than Jaren had been, even if he has more anger than the other had been able to muster. Just a nothing boy from a nowhere settlement, one who had never even seen stars beside those pale things that filter through to Earth. And so, Yor does not draw his cannon when the boy finally comes to find him. He doesn't need to.

Yor watches as the gun lights up, and does his best not to laugh as it sputters out again. The light is failing in this place, the high flat ridge with endless forest sweeping out beneath them on either side. 

"What did you-" frustration, anger, _fear_. He does laugh, then. 

A straightening of the boy's spine, chin raising. No helmet, face fresh as it likely will be until he takes his final death. He can see it, the moment he realises that he's outgunned and outmatched. The attempt at finding peace, dignity, pretending to at least wear Jaren's skin for the moments he has left to him. It's that which saves him, which pulls Yor's hand from his hip and lends him time to think.

He's not anywhere close to either of their levels, not yet. And with Jaren gone, there's nobody left to get him there. 

Well, almost nobody. 

Perhaps the shadow of another man which haunts this boy's face can be fed. Perhaps not. Regardless, Yor finds himself missing slender fingers, light touches. Perhaps this one would be more amenable than the last, once he'd been trained properly.

He kills him with his bare hands, keeps the weapon of sorrow out if it. After all, the ghost held trembling in his grip has to raise him later. His light will still be his, of course. Simply in a different sense.

* * *

Shin awakes, the taste of blood in his throat and a scream dying on his lips. His face hurts, is pressed into the metal mesh of a ship's floor, and he jerks. Not to his feet, not present enough for that, but upright and calling desperately within his head for Jaren's ghost. 

The voice that responds is not that familiar tone; he hasn't even heard it before, but he knows it all the same. Deep, thick, a hint of amusement, and his teeth are bared before he has time to think. Jaren's ghost, where is it, _where-_

A slight screech of metal grating on metal, and Shin's gaze turns slow and sick to what is in Yor's hand. The ghost is not destroyed, that light still resolutely glowing in its optic, but the shell is cracked and warped. Its movements speak of a desperation he's never seen in it before, a loss of composure as the grip tightens and it finally vocalises something static and harsh and painful.

"Stop." He manages not to beg or yell, to keep most of the panic from his voice. "Stop it."

The hand loosens a little, the noise stops and if ghosts needed it Shin could swear it would be panting for breath. He exhales his own, shaking and tight. Tries to swallow down the terror that had lurched in his stomach at the thought of his last tether to his past life lying broken on the floor. 

"Don't worry," the man who killed everyone he ever cared about says. "I wouldn't kill it." A flash of teeth, eyes going narrow in a parody of mirth.

This, unsurprisingly, assuages no fears. His life is in Yor's hands, in every sense, and he does _not_ have the capacity to trust it there. But if Yor will kill them, he will do it whether or not Shin begs him otherwise. So, there's no point in talking. The hunter takes stock, attempts to regain some form of balance now that Jaren's ghost is not at least being actively murdered. His armour is gone. Jaren's gun too, and that cuts deep. The light - he reaches out, and the walls of Yor's ship creak horribly. 

"You won't find your light here," Yor says above him, turning the ghost over and over in his hand. "It's mine." 

The air itself feels… hungry. Like there's something in Shin's body that it wants, hidden behind his teeth and right in the core of him. He firms himself, sets his spine and raises himself to his feet. Hands flexing at his side, he is so very aware that he has _nothing_ backing him up. Nonetheless, he'll die with his hands around Yor's throat if that's what it takes to make the man hurt. 

"I'm alive." The question is implicit. Why? He is apparently in Yor's ship, where he makes his home. Has to have been taken for a purpose, when from all he knows of the monster before him his light would have been a good enough meal. Twice, now, he has survived a man who leaves nothing behind. He wants to know why.

"You are." Yor's grip tightens on the ghost, reaching out with his other hand to where Shin kneels. Trembling, all hatred and fear. He lets it happen, all too focused on how small and breakable the ghost appears in Yor's hand. Even without the light or dark he has at his disposal, it would be so easy to destroy it forever. A hand in his hair, turning his head this way and that, is a small enough price to pay. Even if it makes him sick, even if it hurts. "Jaren cared for you. And you aren't without potential."

"You killed Jaren."

"I would not question me too closely, unless you want to join him." The grip tightens, jerks his head back a little so that he has to meet Yor's gaze. And… oh, he misses Jaren still. Fiercely, hopelessly. But he wants to live more, to claw his way so deep into existence that he can stay there forever. He does not want to die, alone and unarmed, to the whims of this _thing._

He nods, slow, trying to ignore the pull on his hair. 

That same grin again. "Better." 

Shin is going to find some way to split this man from seam to seam. To burn him from the inside out, make sure there was no scrap of corruption left from which he could return. He's going to utterly destroy him for the way his hand goes gentle, smoothing through his hair for a brief moment as his hand loosens around Jaren's ghost. He closes his eyes, thinks of blood and fire and how Yor will _scream._

"You'll do well enough," Yor decides, and the dread only grows. 

* * *

  
Shin is intelligent enough, but it takes a while for him to realise what will make Yor happy with him. What turns his hands gentle, inclines him more towards keeping him fed. Gets him a blanket to sleep under, water to drink. Not things he needs, not any more. But things that provide at least something besides four walls and the expectation of hurt, those he comes to value highly.

And what Yor likes is when he can see some of Jaren in him. 

The way he tracks the movement of Shin's fingers when they're sore and stiff from cold, the deliberate and ginger movements they make. It's that which tips him off, because he remembers Jaren doing something similar. Has tried not to think of him too often in this situation, doing his best not to tarnish the memories that remain to him. But the movements of his hands on cold days, all precision and careful motion as he explained something for Shin, he remembers that well. Yor does too, by the way his face goes still.

For one long moment, Shin thinks it will get him hurt again. That he's given yet another reason for Yor to want him bleeding and dead somewhere in a cold forest. Or, well, in his cold fucking ship. Instead, he gets the first gentle touch he's had in days. A warm hand wrapping around his cold one, a lack of pain. It's still brusque, he's still got danger written in every line of his body. But he doesn't crush the bones of Shin's fingers, doesn't burn him with the light at his disposal and his alone. Just… warms him up a little. And if he savours the warmth a while past when Yor has left him alone in his little holding cell, wondering _why,_ then nobody can hate him for it more than he does himself.

The next time is an experiment. Testing the hypothesis. 

Yor walks in, and Shin draws to attention the way he remembers Jaren doing when surprised. That little jerk of his head, eyes opening a little wider before relaxing once more. Hand dropping back down to thigh, one side of his face pulling just a little at his mouth. Shin can't muster the little half smile that Jaren used to shoot his way, not without feeling sick and likely letting Yor know something is up, but his head ducks when he fully enters the room. There's no inhalation, no sign that he's noticed, but once again the usual pain is missing from how the Lightbearer interacts with him. No broken bones, no bruises, he even gets a bottle of water placed to his lips.

As he's allowed to drink for the first time in a couple days, Shin figures out what he needs to do to survive. Well, survive with a little of his sanity intact.

It's slow, so as not to alert Yor through any sudden shift in persona. But there and then, Shin crafts his first false identity. Recalls everything he can of how Jaren was, every mannerism and way of being, and uses it as one last gift to keep him safe now the gun and ghost have been lost. The way his eyes soften easy, the tender hand movements, the poise and easy gait those few times he's allowed to get to his feet in Yor's presence…

Slowly, Shin draws Jaren's skin about him until the seams are barely visible. And because all he has of Jaren is the way he was to Shin, who he cared for, it is not possible for him to portray anything else to Yor besides affection.

It makes him sick, when he's alone and able to drop the mask. 

As Yor gentles his touches though, as Shin lies more and more fervently inside his head that of _course_ he loves Yor because otherwise he will go back to flinching and starving and no matter if it makes him sick this is better by far… as this happens, things get _muddy_. Because one day Yor presses a slice of fruit into his mouth, better fare than usual. And Shin's lips open without thought, he makes a wordless noise of thanks, and Yor runs one hand slowly through his hair. And it is better, an improvement on being left bruised and hungry. At the same time, he hates himself almost as much as he hates the other. 

A bright thread of light returns to him the next day, almost blinds him. He hasn't seen the ghost in a while, had almost forgotten its touch winding through his soul. But here, the blackened and rotting metal of the ship still close around him, a single kindling flame.

He doesn't use it for a long time, doesn't trust it not to be some terrible trick that Yor is playing on him. Bait of some kind. So he makes play at being scared but willing, at letting Yor break him and becomingly good and empty for him, and holds the tiny flame inside his chest where it cannot be seen.

Then, when Yor is gone to slaughter other innocents and the ship is sat in empty void as it always is so that Shin cannot even consider an escape besides death, he forces his way out of the room he's been in for… well, since that day on the ridge. The light he has is used with all the efficiency he can muster; his resources are so scarce, the trickle of power so very limited that he can afford no waste at all. Just enough heat to trip the lock, to fool the air seals, to melt that final bolt. It is just, barely, enough.

Shin has flown only one ship. Jaren's ship. It was learned hastily, with careless speed, because Yor was getting further away and the ship's AI wouldn't stop calling him Jaren and he needed the freedom _now._ He is in no way prepared for the mess of wiring and sickening corruption and unintelligible hive scrawlings that Yor's ship is, and when his captor comes back he finds him hunched dead-eyed over the console without even the good sense to ready himself for the first blow.

"You only failed one of the two tests," Yor tells him calmly enough, dragging him by his hair along the floor to his cell. He's bleeding quite heavily, having broken his nose and split his lip with the way his head had been slammed into the console. He hopes it breaks the fucking ship. Knows it won't. "If you'd failed both, you wouldn't be worth keeping." He shoves Shin to his knees, face an inch from the warped and melted door mechanism. "Efficiency. Remember it."

Shin remembers very well. Experience has always taught him better than words. 

* * *

  
Yor tilts his chin up, looks down at him with those cold eyes, and Shin parts his lips automatically. Yor is easy in some ways; he almost never hurts him when he moves just _so_ and stays steady enough not to betray any fear. He gets a slow sideways smile for that, faint but present, and a thumb presses into his mouth. 

He… Shin doesn't know what to do with that, but the smile is a good sign and there's a hand working through his hair. Which could mean he's doing well, that Yor is going to be kind, or could mean that those fingers will yank him sideways and shove his face against the wall until something _breaks._ Maybe then he will be allowed to see Jaren's ghost, and the possibility is dear enough that he almost wishes for it, but... he likes not being in pain. And he's afraid of those hands turning harsh, of having sold his pride and soul and dignity making Yor happy and suddenly making that sacrifice worthless by being an idiot. Sunk cost fallacy, he knows that. But having bent this far, he cannot handle it being for nothing.

Shin Malphur is a coward, and he doesn't know what the plan is any more. Killing Yor seems so distant that it's almost unreal. Getting out is something that will take so very long that Yor is likely to tire of his company and kill him before it ever happens. All he has left to focus on is his short term plans, his temporary strategies, and those all boil down to making Yor happy with him at the cost of his self-respect. 

It's that, or just accept death.

He wavers between the two, and Yor makes a noise of displeasure. It's almost automatic, how he moves to soothe that annoyance. Closes his lips around the intrusion, presses his tongue tentatively up against the pad, sucks slow and uncertain. 

"Good." It's terse, not real praise, but it's not anger. Come on. Be Jaren, inhabit that persona. Ducking his head, looking up from beneath his lashes with a slight quirk of his brow. Amusement, mild disbelief. Still warmth, shoulders loose and easy. That gets a breath, more solid approval. The hand moves deliberately in his hair, pulling in a way that is far less harsh than normal. Doesn't even hurt, really, just guides him to move his head forward, take all of it into his mouth. The hand relaxes, and Shin with it. It's easier, when wearing someone else, to do what's wanted of him. Yor likes him better because it's not really him, and Shin can hate himself less for the same reason.

Yor's hunter sucks slow and languid at his thumb, before his head is tilted back by a finger curled beneath his chin. He meets the gaze, his own a little vacant. Doesn't require much thought, this part of the day. Nor much any part of his day, not really. At least when Yor is here something happens, he isn't just left to his four walls and the endless creaking groan of the ship. He could swear he's begun to hear whispers, like there's someone else in there with him. 

He never thought he'd be grateful to see Dredgen fucking Yor every day. 

Yor opens the hunter's mouth, keeps his gaze fixed on him. He lets it happen. Doesn't squirm away, act shy. Doesn't have a huge amount of reference for how Jaren would act in this scenario, hadn't ever had the chance to find out. Wonders if he should have, if it would have helped. Sure would've been useful now, even if perhaps it would have hurt all the more when Yor left him broken and bleeding and lightless in-

A flicker in his eyes, some fragment of hurt or fury, and Yor grins. Shoves him back to the floor, leaves him alone. 

Lesson learned. Don’t think, don’t give in to distraction. Stay in character.

* * *

  
The hunter isn't really thinking any more. Not when every thought has a whispered echo, something outside-and-inside his head that fills the darkness with a layer of static. It's far, far safer not to really exist when Yor isn't around to scare whatever horrors his ship is carrying back into the woodwork.

His day starts when Yor returns from wherever it is he goes that isn't here. Sometimes that takes a lot longer than most real days, but time is real hard to measure in the dark anyway. He tends to track by when he gets hungry enough that sleeping is the best solution to his problems. Yor will usually be less harsh when he has to do that, will bring better food too. Something that feels properly sustaining, maybe even tastes good. He'll feed it to the hunter slow and easy, give him water to wash it down. 

He gets a bottle of water to himself these days though, one he can keep. Yor took a little too long once, found him curled up and sick and cracking apart at the seams. It was funny, he'd actually spent the time working to get him better instead of the mercy kill he should have gone for. Enough to make him wonder if Jaren's ghost is even still alive in there somewhere, only once in a while he feels a snatch of solar warmth against his fingertips. Wouldn't feel that if there wasn't _something_ tying him to the light. 

It's good, that it's still going. He would be… he thinks he'd be sad, if it was gone. He doesn't do emotions so well these days, has given over those processed in the name of survival. The old grief has been blunted by time and worse pain, by the way he once hollowed out Jaren's memory and poured it inside himself. Still, it's his. And Yor wants it alive too, he thinks. After all, he's managed to collect everything else Jaren left behind.

So, it's better when Yor's here. The lights come on, the hunter gets fed, gets to think and feel again. Yor's mood will vary, but if he works hard and moves right and does well he can usually drag it up from even the lowest depths. It's not really playacting any more, not with how used to the movements he's become. A lazy sprawl when Yor comes in, a wry little half-smile, hair grown long and tied back, fingertips fluttering against Yor's skin without even a thought. 

If he's good enough, Yor will be contented enough. He leaves less often, when the hunter can keep him in a good mood. It serves a dual purpose; he's not left alone with whatever darkness likes to seep into his skull from within the walls, and maybe fewer people will die. It's an abstraction to him at this point. He knows that he comes back some days with smoke clinging to his clothes, blood on his hands. Very occasionally, some of the blood will be his. 

The first time he made the hunter clean it off with his tongue, he wasn't allowed any real food until he'd done the job, and it was so dried on that it took him hours and hours to get the gloves properly clean. Now his mouth opens before he has to be told, and he does it easy enough. It's just blood, no different from his own; not worth the hassle and potential pain from disobedience at this point. Yor gets to enjoy watching him suck heavily on leather-clad fingers, the hunter gets to eat. 

Ever since he managed to figure out the best ways to keep him happy, the perfect performance and best person to be, Yor's come back with violence in his heart less often. Less blood, less burning. That's… it's not the goal he set for himself long ago, not even close. It's the one he can manage though, and he likes to think that it makes a difference somewhere. That kneeling between Yor's legs, mouth closed around his cock as he navigates far past earth and out into deeper space…Well. Chances are, of course, that all it does is give the man a nice warm hole to fuck for a while. He'll turn the hunter's head though, pull him off and show him the stars blurring past the viewport before shoving back into him hard enough to choke. 

It's still better than when he wants to fuck the hunter in earnest though. Those are the times when nothing Shin can do will make him believe in the shadow of Jaren still nestled in his bones. He never saw Jaren like this, doesn't know how to play him or even to guess. Yor knows it, _hates_ him for it or so it seems some days. Perhaps he just likes the noises he makes when he's in pain. It's always rough, no matter how tender it starts, and no matter how often he uses the hunter he's never loose enough that it doesn't hurt when he fucks into him. Shin does his best, tries to make it good, but he never quite escapes without the kind of injury that will ache for days or weeks. 

So yes, the hunter will happily go to his knees and suck Yor off as many times as he likes these days. It's all just… it's all easier than the alternative, and he'll usually jerk him off in return. Sometimes, he wonders if that's Yor's version of love. That reciprocity, the give and take of it. Him being kind, feeding the hunter by hand, getting him off, giving him the bare minimum so he doesn't die. It's all more than he has to do, and so he wonders if that's what love is because otherwise it could all go away when his whims change. 

Sometimes, he wonders if Jaren would hate him for how happy he is when Yor finally returns, the way he feels good when he knows he's done well. If he'd despise him for the joys he's managed to make for himself here, instead of wallowing in misery ‘til it chokes him. Then again, he doesn't really know much about Jaren the person any more. Jaren the act is easier, more learned and simple. The rest of him was too much to hold inside one head and heart. 

Shin's going to kill him one day, he thinks placidly as he jerks a couple times and spills over Yor's hand. The endorphin rush passes through him, and he keeps sucking and hollowing around the length in his mouth. If he lives long enough, he's going to slit him from navel to chin.

Yor comes down his throat, and Shin thanks him in an accent that isn't quite his, licks his lips clean. 

And then, when Yor is gone, the whispers tell him everything he needs to know. 

* * *

  
Dredgen Vale stands over Yor, and the air around him is cool despite the heat coursing through him. His eyes are golden, raised from their usual darkness by the spillover of years of light reclaimed. 

His gun. His ghost. Not anyone else's any more; he cannot afford to be anyone else's _anything_ any more. Son. Lover. Mentee. _Pet_. If he's to lose any of these, he has to lose all of them. 

In the pilot's seat is a smouldering, ruined corpse. The gun at what had been its hip is pristine, undamaged by what had been every ounce of dark and light he could funnel into one form. Made of sturdy stuff, this thorn. 

The ghost locked away in one drawer is empty scrap, more hive barnacles than machine. It looks dead, like it has been for years. It’s worse once Vale cracks it apart in one hand. Best to be safe. He takes the gun. Fires one shot into the corpse, pinning it to the chair with the barbed end of one slug. Afterwards, he wants to throw the gun aside and never touch that blasted and hellish thing ever again. It's more useful to him than he can afford to lose though, and the whispers were quite clear. He needs it for now. 

The ship is silent, even without Yor there to drive the shadows back against the wall. Vale's got them buried in deep enough that he doesn't need their active guidance though, knows the right way to steer this ship. Jaren's is likely still in orbit, miles above that ridge. He'd thought, seriously thought, that he could kill what Yor had become then. He'd been a fool. 

There it is. Still clean, the shields having held well enough to prevent cold-welding and all the other myriad wearing that space puts on a craft. Helmet. Tether. He doesn't want to dock, wants some tiny fucking fragment of his life and Jaren's not to be touching this place. So he and the ghost pass over, enter that empty space of no man's land before the airlock pressurises and spits them out. 

It's as he left it, not even dusty. The filtration systems working well, before they were shut down to conserve power at least. Bunk unmade, a shirt flung over the pilot seat, even some ration packs scattered over the floor. He'd sat here, held a silent communion with whatever ghost had still haunted the place before transmatting down. Now, Vale sits and surveys the battered old thing yawing beside it. It looks rotten, from the outside. Like it’s some new kind of parasite; like every single scrap of life that had been sucked from him had been funnelled not into Yor but into the prison itself. All plating bone and the whispers trying to reach him still across the void.

He thinks wistfully of destroying it. Making those four walls into scrap, shattering forever even the dimmest possibility that he would be trapped there ever again. His hand inches towards whatever weapons systems he still has at his disposal, wonders if they'll still work.

"Shin-" he shoots the ghost a look, and he doesn't know how he must appear to it any more. Looking like hell, most likely.

Well, like Jaren given how Yor's tastes had run. 

Like he needs a fucking break. 

His hand drops. The ship can stay. It has its place, it's uses. The whispers are meant to live somewhere, after all, and they have things to say to others besides him.

Finding those others… well. He doesn't know if he's fit for society these days, but he has a gun and a book and the whispers know where they're meant to go so it's stay here til his carcass rots… or go and _do_ something. Find the people he needs, make them understand, make it so he's not alone with this. He's had enough of being alone.


	2. Postscript

When Teben Grey asks who he is, Vale for all his plans and for all the guidance of the whispers in his head… Vale doesn't know how to respond. It's not a question he's had to answer since even before Yor killed him that very first time. 

This is a man who cares for and knows nothing of Jaren Ward.

Just for that, Vale thinks he could love him. In a way, at least. 

Instead, Vale pulls Thorn. Tilts it this way and that, letting it glint softly in the evening sun. Holsters it again, feels a palpable relief in doing so, then takes what Teben will actually care about and offers it to him. A book, bound in moldering leather; the result of days of work compiling and recording every scrap of writing he could find in that place. None of it legible, not to him. 

Not to Teben yet.

"Dredgen Vale," he says when asked once more for a name, doesn't miss the way Grey goes all still and quiet. Frozen like a rabbit in a trap. He curses himself for it; just like that, he's defined himself relative to Yor. Again. Never quite free of that sick shadow. One thing at a time though, he supposes. "He's dead. Won't be missed."

Grey looks down at the book in his hands, up at the still and watchful young man in front of him. Vale blinks calmly back at him; no threat, he doesn't think he knows how to inspire real fear these days. He's a killer, of course, but he doesn't look it. No aggression to his form, none of that physical menace that Yor had excelled at. Vale is harmless, even with the weapon of sorrow at his hip and Yor's blood still staining his hands. Will keep being harmless until the body hits the floor. 

Teben nods, eyes wide, and invites Vale home with him. 

Vale goes easy enough. 

There's a sort of reverence about the warlock, fearful and wondering as he snatches glimpses. Vale knows why, but it's difficult to believe it. He's clean-shaven, hair cut short and slicked back, clothes picked to be as far from the soft and simple practicalities Jaren had liked and Yor had given him. According to every immutable law that was beaten into him he is ugly. Has made himself ugly and _safe_ and thoroughly uninteresting. Perhaps it's something in his face that he won't ever be rid of. The thought turns his stomach.

Only Teben keeps _looking_ between him and the book as if he doesn't know which one he likes more, and it… it doesn't bother him, exactly. There's no threat here in his body, his stance. Short, soft, curves and curls and not even scarred. He doesn't know if he's got any fear left inside him any more, not for things like Grey. He knows intimately how he would kill him, how he will if it becomes necessary. 

It does draw his attention though, over and over. 

They meet again and again, slowly progressing their understanding, gradually wringing meaning from the damp pages. Teben grows more comfortable with him, fears him less, looks at him with an odd kind of joy as he talks about door runes and the deep. Vale doesn't know what he's referring to, half the time, but he feels an echo of those words against whatever's replaced his soul.

The whispers like Teben. They think he's useful. Vale agrees.

Eventually the warlock works up the nerve to kiss him, and Vale freezes for a long moment. Long enough that Teben withdraws, worried, begins frantic apologies. By that point, though, Vale's already pressing him back onto the bed. He can't do this without being in control, he _can't_ , but he thinks that maybe he doesn't want Yor to be able to take this from him. And luckily enough, Teben is happy to cede his will to Vale's own. Let him press bites and kisses to his neck, wrap a hand around him and not move it until _he_ decides. Works fingers into him, and Vale knows intimately how to make this hurt and how to make it good. He toes the line between the two, errs on the side of pleasure this time. Still works for every gasp though, teeth sharp against skin. 

Vale fucks Teben without breaking him, and counts it a success. As far as transactions of power go, it is one. And the warlock seems to like it, shuddering and gasping underneath him. He plays the part wrong, of course, but then again Vale's expectations of how his role is to go are a little off. 

It is a little heartening to realise that the world is full of people who never gave a damn about any of the people who trained him, never met them. That they don't look at him and see another man's face overlaid on his own.

He keeps Grey, even after he's done the work of the translation for him. Learns a lot of things from him; for one, he can put a name on what Yor did to him. 

Unmaking. 

"There will be no peace now, not for some time," Grey says aloud, looks up to the sky.

Far above them, Vale can feel the whispers ebb and flow and _want_ him. He can empathise.

"I have something to show you," Vale tells him, and holds out one hand. 


	3. Grief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternate ending in which someone else managed to end Yor before Vale could.

Time is hard to track, up here in the dark. Particularly when Shin starts hurting enough that it's easiest just to sleep through it.

He drifts, dies quiet and parching, and Yor doesn't come back.

His ghost must raise him at some point, caught as he is in the dark and cold, because the whispers are back. They never resolve into anything that makes sense, but they're loud enough to keep him from sleeping again.

He manages to claw deep enough into his own skull to rupture his eardrums. It takes him a while to get to that point, or at least he think it does. It only get worse when they refuse to quiet.

He dies again.

Dies, _again._

His ghost is resurrecting him for some unknown reason, keeping him in breath and body, and he doesn't know how long it is between each life. If it has been weeks since Yor was last here, or months. Years? It cannot be years, he wouldn't be able to breathe if it were years. Surely the ship would have failed, broken and patchwork as it is? 

Perhaps not. After all, he never really saw it function as a ship should.

He misses Yor. That takes him a while to process, to separate out from the aching want that has characterised every life since he was left alone. Longer still to accept. But then, it makes sense. At least Yor was something, even if he hurt him. He still brought food, water. Touched him, held him close, spoke to him. He has _none_ of that now, and he wants so badly. Would take the pain in a heartbeat, beg for it, if it meant that he wouldn't be alone in this lifeless tomb. He will be back, though. He's needed, he wouldn't leave for good. The ship aches for him, _Shin_ aches for him and he wouldn't leave all that pain untasted.

A fragment of wall breaks away beneath his fingers, the rusted metal giving way to a wet stickiness and crusting bone. On the other side of it must be empty space, sucking void. He leaves well enough alone; even now, he's not quite far gone enough to be hopeless. 

He dies, his soul fragments, he wakes to murmurings that never fade, he clings desperately to existence. 

Eventually he decides that if he simply believes hard enough, hurts enough, is good enough, Yor will come back. Something in his chest resonates with the idea that Shin's pain can call him. Little rituals, the shaping of intent. The whispers quieten a touch when he does it, as if they can sense Yor wherever he is. As if the memory of him is enough to press them back. 

His hunter must have been unsatisfactory, not worked hard enough to make him happy, not been enough. Must have been too much Shin, too little Jaren. He can fix that though. Make it so that Yor will come back and let him be good again. Reward him for his faith. 

The fragment of wall carves marks into his arms, fragments of remembered hive script repeated over and over. The same ones marking the ship, because they are the same in many regards. Shin needs direction, patience, to be moved at another's intent. Use, holding, controlled freedom. All of these Shin has to take onto his skin and into his body. If he does that, he won't be alone.

He dies, and the cuts are healed.

Yor's symbol goes onto his skin then, over and over. Clawed into him, painted on him in drying blood, thoughts of possession and ownership and he spends his nights that life begging the man to come back. Better that than dying here alone and unwanted until the stars burn out. 

Yor doesn't come.

He thinks he hates the ghost, then. Hates Yor, hates the Traveller most of all. Hates this curse of endless life without power, without ability. Hates himself, for not having the courage to tear a hole in his little cell and let the vacuum of space shred him through it. 

It doesn't occur to him to hate Jaren, because Jaren has become unreal to him. The man who left him alone is entirely divorced from the memories from which he draws his _smile touch be gentle make him want you make him love you_ and Shin does not know how to reconcile the two of them. Somewhere lies the bones of a man he doesn't think he'd recognise any more. 

Yor, though. Yor has left him here to starve and thirst and scream over and over and he could at least have had the spine to put a bullet in his ghost first. 

He breaks his fist against the door over and over, beats himself to a pulp trying to get out. It does nothing, just hurts and spatters the floor of his room with blood and bone that rot beneath the grille. 

No-one is coming, and Shin can do nothing.

He waits.

And waits.

And dies.

Eventually, he stops bothering to open his eyes when he wakes. Just stays there, a fatigue that won't lift with sleep or death sitting heavy in his bones.

He and the ship hang there, a tiny pocket of rot in endless black. Together, they decay.

What breaks him from this endless half-sleep is a noise, small but there. A whine from one of the instruments on the other side of the door, a brief sputter of static. He opens his eyes, slow. The whine repeats. Sits up, body no longer used to it even though his muscles have never atrophied. He's hungry, of course. Thirsty. He's always that. They don't bother him any more.

A jolt runs through the ship, a shuddering sensation. Metal on metal, an airlock _hiss_ and _thunk._

Someone is aboard the ship.

Not Yor, of course. Shin has long since accepted that he's never coming back. That he's dead, or finally snapped beyond what Shin can fix. He'd toyed with the possibility that everyone was dead, that the man had wiped the entire planet clean and Shin was alone forever. 

Those are voices though, muffled but human enough, and he listens with rapt attention. One soft, one low. Another, in between. 

He hasn't heard a voice besides his own in so, so long. Doesn't _remember_ any besides his and Yor's.

Something raps against the door of his cell, someone laughs. It sounds forced, maybe. Some muttering. Dreamlike, he raps back against the cold metal.

Everything goes very quiet. Then movement, loud and hushed at the same time, and Shin comes back to himself a little. These are people, there are _people_ here and if anything happens to them he will be left here alone forever so he needs them more than anything. He slams his hand against the door, hard this time. Yells wordlessly, raggedly, sobs dry around the pain in his chest. He needs out, doesn't care if they put a bullet in him as long as he can see the sky when he goes.

Or just light of any kind. He'd settle for that.

More yelling from the other side, banging. Voices mixing over one another, impossible to understand, and Shin begs and begs them to let him go.

The door finally opens, spills him fevered and pale and barely-coherent at the feet of three men. One reaches out to him, the other pulls his companion back. Hisses something, a gun in his hand. 

It's so bright here. 

He drops his head, eyes closed, tries not to cry out precious moisture. Earth hangs beneath the ship, so close all this time. It looks almost like he could touch it through the window. 

"Are you ok?" A hand reaching out to him again, broad and strong-looking, and he does his best to suppress the flinch. Then tries harder not to just press into it, cling for dear life to another human body. "Hey, it's ok. You're ok. Yor's… Yor's dead."

He looks up, eyes blurred from sensitivity and pain and wetness. Doesn't know what to say, what he's even supposed to feel now.

The whispers pour in on them all then, and save him from having to think at all.


	4. Partnership

Yor has one hand tight around his throat, face pressed hard into the floor, and there's something so horribly wrong with the way his jaw is grinding against itself with every thrust. It's just the usual. There’s always some reason; the hunter not quite managing to soothe Yor's nerves, some pressing need for violence overriding quiet calm and his best attempts at de-escalation. He's not really breathing properly, the grip bruising against his windpipe. There's nothing he can do about it though, nothing left but to go with whatever Yor wants as willingly as he can. Every time though, there’s the sick feeling that maybe he simply won't wake up when Yor is done with him. That maybe he's not enough, hasn't been enough. 

It's the one thing that brings him fear these days, the knowledge that Yor may grow tired of everything he's tried to be. 

His vision dimming, body spasming, he does his usual. Curls into himself, buries all thought and feeling and sensation, inhales the memory of a man long dead. The same few snatches of conversation engraved into his memory, the soft smiles and confidence without arrogance. Normally he's searching those memories over and over for an answer; what should he be doing, how should he act, what will save him hurt? What will make Yor happy?

In that moment, he isn't even thinking with as much agency as that. He's simply trying to become someone else, become what he's pretended to be for so long. Not a persona, or an act. Just get rid of Shin and let Jaren live here instead.

Dreamlike, one hand raises as though not under his control. Taps the hand on his throat a couple times, two fingers, the movement entirely from the wrist. 

Inside him, Yor goes utterly still. 

The hunter can breathe again, fingers uncurling from around his throat, and he goes utterly limp. The hand drops, and whatever impulse had taken him over is gone. Yor still isn't moving, isn't speaking. Isn't hurting him though, and perhaps that's all he wants. After a moment a hand strokes through long hair, unties it. Lets it fall loose about his shoulders, fingers still combing through the long strands. A quiet noise from the hunter, low and appreciative, and when he starts fucking him again it's slower. More measured, less punishing. 

Yor winds a hand through that long hair, pulls him back with it though without the usual harsh yanking motion. Gets him off the floor, settles back on his knees with the hunter pressed up against his chest. The hand shifts forward, feeds two fingers into his mouth for him to suck on. At the very least it keeps him quiet. He checks out again, unsure of how to be without at least the benefit of experience, goes back to the quiet space. And again, that strange lack of control. Isolated within his own body. As though it knows what to do now, needs little input from him. It's nice; he could stay here. The pain is lessened this far down, as is the pleasure. He'd sleep, only he doesn't know if the rest of him would sleep too. 

So instead he watches dimly as he writhes back just a little, gives just a hint of teeth where Yor is pressed into his mouth, moves his hand down to his cock and just keeps it there without bothering to pleasure himself.

Yor should be breaking his fingers by now for daring that. 

Instead he presses a kiss to the back of the hunter's neck, bites down on his shoulder with barely a hint of the normal strength and savagery he wields. Pulls the body more firmly back onto his cock, rolls his hips instead of just jerking the hunter up and down. Dully, Shin takes notes from his little spot deep inside his own head. He's been doing this all wrong, no wonder Yor had to hurt him. 

Maybe he shouldn't check back in. Things seem to go better without him around.

Yor comes inside him, bites down on his neck only hard enough to bruise and not to bleed, wraps one hand around his and pulls him off slow. Funny, Shin doesn't like it slow. His body seems to like it just fine though, all languid pleasure without a hint of the anxious needy trembling it normally induces. 

Yor likes that, rumbles something incomprehensible but pleased into his shoulder, actually bothers to clean him up once he pulls out. 

And then Shin's back, and he doesn't feel _good_ but there's no blood and he's conscious and there's even some satisfaction so… ok. 

He looks up at Yor, dazed, and doesn't know how to feel when the other looks right through him. For a moment though, he could swear he feels another touch against his skin. Light, fluttering, _careful_. 

His head hurts. He might need to rest for a while.

* * *

Shin's intelligent enough. Got a good enough head on his shoulders; he has to, to have lived this long already. His knowledge of sword logic, the framework or creed that Yor seems to live and breathe… that's sorely lacking. So it's not immediately obvious what's going on, when he lets himself check out of the proceedings. It's only during pain and hopelessness, when there's nothing he can do but endure, but as he learns how it starts happening more and more.

It's like Yor's noticed, started chasing it.

Every time he doesn't know how to fix things, Shin himself gets pushed aside a little. And then his body does the right things, pleases Yor just so, and things get better. Like there's someone else wearing the hunter's skin, someone who's more capable and who Yor likes better.

Putting it like that, he feels stupid that he doesn't realise what's been happening until Yor smiles slow and dangerous. Says "Jaren" in that rumbling baritone, tilts the hunter's chin to one side and presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

And the hunter's mouth opens, a voice not quite his emerges and says "Rezyl," with considerably less satisfaction. Doesn't stop him reciprocating the kiss though, doing things that Shin recognises intimately as his normal routine for when Yor decides he wants to be softer. Head tilting just right, eyelashes sweeping low against his cheeks, an inhale before pressing a kiss against those scarred lips.

Shin's fault, he thinks. It's not even conscious any more, for either of them. Feels awful, now that he can recognise what's actually happening in him. His one comfort had been that the pathetic and two-dimensional parody he'd made of the man would never be seen by anyone but Yor. That it had been necessary, had kept him alive. It had been better, being a pathetic mockery of a man he loved than dying as himself. And now that man is here, and he doesn't know if it was worth the price to trap the other hunter here too. 

"You killed me," Jaren says aloud, against Yor's lips. Not angry, not sad. Just matter of fact; it happened, he is stating that. 

Yor nods, and their expressions match perfectly. "I did. And then I brought you back."

Jaren leans them away, frowning a little now. Raising his fingers to his face, feeling the unfamiliar and yet familiar planes of it. Shin stays quiet, stays small. All shame, all fear. He has pieced together a lot, over time. About what Jaren and Yor must once have been to one another, about why he had been left alone in that forest. About why he was even here, what Yor got from him that he couldn't simply get from any poor bastard with a pulse and a hole to fuck. 

He doesn't know what to expect now that the three of them are in the same room. Doesn't know who he is allied to, who he is supposed to be pleasing. If it's even possible to keep everyone here happy at all. 

"Not just you," Jaren says, and Shin feels something cold and calming press through him. "What have you done to him?" It's still not angry. Shin thinks that maybe he wanted anger. At himself, for what he's done. At Yor, for making him do it. At Jaren, for leaving him to this. He's not been able to summon up his own anger in so long. 

The hand in the hunter's hair tightens just a little before smoothing, going tender again. "He's been a very good little vessel." He tilts Jaren's head to the side, all strength and power, fixes not Jaren but _Shin_ with a look like ice. As if he can somehow tell exactly where Shin is cowering. "And he's going to keep being good." 

There's a moment, a low surge of dread, and then Shin is laid open. Doesn't know how to defend himself from in here, hasn't had firm boundaries or any real sense of self except as a subject of Yor's will in so long. So when Jaren, a man who may not have been strong or fierce but was in his own way _immovable_ sets about finding out what has happened, Shin doesn't stand a chance. 

Jaren has rarely if ever been cruel to him. As Shin has to relive everything though, out of order and distorted by time and his own head, he hates the man just a little. This is cruelty, even if it is also necessary. He does not want to recall those days when he was allowed to see sunlight or trees or birds or anything besides the ship. He does not _want_ to remember how he'd been so determined to escape. How he'd tried and failed until he just gave up. Every beating, every night of hurt and fear and endless whispering, it was private. Between him and Yor, and Jaren had no _right_ when all he'd wished was for the man to love him. He hates it; how can he be loved now, when Jaren has seen everything? 

"I'll kill you," Jaren says aloud, voice barely understandable. It's funny, Shin doesn't remember that kind of fire in the man. "I'm going to kill you."

Yor smiles, tightens his grip on the hunter's hand til bone creaks and grates. "Yes. That's the spirit."

* * *

It works like this: Jaren is a person, and gets to move them around and leave their little cell of a room. He gets to eat real food, to watch the stars go by, to ask for things and be given them. Within reason, of course. They aren't allowed out, or to see their ghost. Not allowed access to the light. Even these little allowances though, they're more than Shin has gotten in all his time here. 

Shin is there to be beaten until their body fails or he goes back into that quiet space where Yor wants him.

No exceptions, no excuses. Shin isn't meant to be in control, Yor wants this to be Jaren's body. Going against that earns punishment, and that is the new rule. 

He's… not happy with it, those aren't words that really apply any more, but he internalises it. Is willing to comply, to abide by it in the interest of survival and avoiding pain. Shin has always been a willing student of survival.

Jaren is a different story.

Shin is willing to cut him some slack, to acknowledge that he hasn't had as much time to learn that breaking the rules gets them nowhere, that it's pointless and only ends up with Shin crumpled on the floor coughing blood through broken teeth. He knows Jaren hasn't had the teaching he has, hasn't come to accept how things are now. It's fine. He understands. It took him a while too.

But every time Jaren refuses to take control, shoves Shin out in front and makes him look up at Yor's eyes… it's hard, then, not to blame him for what happens next. Even though it's Yor's hands so casually shattering bone, Yor making sure to burn him deep and slow just so he'll beg to die like he wants him to, Yor fucking him until he bleeds and shoving his face into the floor until something _breaks_ -

It's Jaren who put him here. Jaren who didn't want… what? To look out of the window, to get to read a book, to write, to do _anything_ that isn't this? Shin would kill for Yor to fuck him as slow and gentle as he does Jaren, to kiss him that deep and make him feel good for once. 

Or failing that, he'd just kill to be allowed to stay back, instead of having Yor break his jaw and watch him suffocate on the cold floor. 

So yeah, he has difficulty finding sympathy for Jaren's situation when it's him who's paying for it.

"You know he's trying to kill you for good," Jaren says aloud when Yor has gone away to murder and they are locked back inside their room. "There's a _reason_ he doesn't want you out."

Shin thinks that he would rather take his chances staying still and quiet inside and hoping that Yor will take that as close enough.

"He won't."

Jaren, he thinks in a slightly less polite tone, has far less experience in this particular field than certain other people wearing this skin, and could stand to maybe give him a little more credit. Particularly since in the days he's been here Shin's been killed more than in the preceding… well, in a long time. It's hard to tell, but he's pretty sure it had been weeks since Yor had had to correct him. 

Jaren smooths a hand over their face, still barely stubbled despite how long it's been. Closes their eyes, blocks out Shin's view of the stars. 

"I need you to help me kill him."

It's not possible to _think_ hysterical laughter, but Shin gives it his best shot. 

* * *

Maybe it's because the pain isn't happening to him, or maybe it's because Shin is just weak and pathetic. Either way, Jaren doesn't even try to make Yor happy. Spends his time in blank indifference or empty-eyed misery, occasionally straying into cold anger when he's hurt Shin recently. 

It hurts that even then Yor likes him better. Even when Shin has tried so hard to make him happy, sacrificed so much of himself just so Yor would smile.

He doesn't want Shin though, not even Shin-as-Jaren. Just… Jaren. He has never, _ever_ wanted Shin. He was just better than nothing. 

Yor presses lips against theirs, works slick fingers inside them and curls them just right to make Jaren gasp. It's slow, tender, focused on pleasure. Jaren hates it, kicks Shin to the front with Yor's fingers still pressing inside, and the man bites down hard on Shin’s throat. He doesn't understand how the man knows, how he always knows, and Shin just stops existing as best he can. Can't go to that quiet place, not while Jaren's there. He is trapped, stuck in a skin that no longer fits him, and it would be best to stop existing at all if it grants him even the slightest hope of peace.

He's so very, very tired of being caught between Yor's want and Jaren's hate. 

The body goes limp, not under anyone's control, and for a moment triumph shadows Yor's face. A flash of panic, and Jaren shoves his way to the front with a gasp. Shoves the larger man away with all the pathetic strength the body can muster. Curls around himself, eyes vacant, and Shin is suddenly floating in that calm silence. Jaren pressing cold fingers against their skin, desperate, trying to reassure himself that Shin is still present.

Perhaps it is unkind of him, but in that Shin finds one final method of control over the situation. Jaren cannot force him to be in charge; either he can stay as a silent watcher, or Jaren can be alone with Yor. And despite the frigid terror that comes with non-existence, the absolute certainty that he will become nothing, it's hard to avoid the inevitability of it. Every resource he has, every scrap of will, it gets him _nothing._ There is no control, no leverage over his fate, there's just the other two deciding what will happen to him and he can only take so much of it.

Jaren only needs a little teaching this time. He puts Shin in front when Yor is anywhere near, and the body crumples. Shin making himself nothing, less than, letting the weight of Yor's darkness bear him down deep into the black. 

Or, Jaren lets him back inside. Takes control again, stops whatever blow Yor was about to deliver. 

The choice of whether he lives or dies is finally his. It's the only one Shin has left to him, in fact, and he leverages it for all he's worth. 

Soon enough, Jaren gives up on making Yor hurt him. 

"I'm sorry," he says aloud one day, rousing Shin from where he lies curled and warm and barely-conscious. 

A wordless query, hazed with the closest thing to sleep he can manage with the body awake. 

A sigh, head tilted back against the wall. "I didn't think he'd ever do this. I… I wouldn't have left you alone, not if I'd known."

They'd have died together, or been here together. Likely the first, and Shin would have died without raising. Shin tries to summon any depth of emotion besides fatigue, tries to pull together that grief he'd lived in for so long. It's not there, he's used everything he has on tears and begging. That's its own dull acknowledgement, the acceptance that he's gone over the memory of everything that happened so often that it's meaningless. He'd used to wonder, used to think about how things could have been different. Lots of what-ifs, lots of maybes. 

One catches Jaren's attention, and he frowns. "I never thought about it too hard," he admits, sounds tired. "You never seemed interested, and pushing would have been…" he trails off. 

Shin doesn't see the issue, but then his standards have been somewhat altered since he saw Jaren in person. The mental equivalent of a shrug, a wordless indication of youth. He'd not been disinterested once, but grief and uncertainty had taken a toll.

A noise of understanding, tired and soft. More like the Jaren he remembered, once. "There's a lot we should've done different." 

They sit there in quiet agreement for a while, and Jaren sighs. "Let me do this for you then." He slips their hand down, takes them in hand. Makes it good, does everything right. It's the best they've felt in a long time, and for once it's under their control. 

When they come, Jaren slips back and lets Shin enjoy the glow.

It's almost like they aren't alone, just for a little while.


End file.
